Recently we were made aware of the Practical Wireless 2 Metre QRP Contest taking place on the 12th June. Power is limited to 3 watts and you can operate /P or from a home/club station. It started at 0900hrs to 1600hrs UTC. Two of us, Howard G4PFW and myself decided to have a go. We tested my FT290 but it was not performing too well with the Clubs antenna system but the FT817 was fine, it performed all day without a hitch. A borrowed power supply (thanks Ted) and a few of my adaptors and we were ready to go on time.

We started, using the callsign G6RC and sweeping the frequencies to see who we could hear then tried to make contact to build up the score, later we sat on a frequency and tried many CQ calls without much success. At the time the weather in the South of England was terrible with a low pressure system and heavy rain coming up from France, I am certain this suppressed the signals and made hearing other stations elsewhere difficult. We had most of the early contacts with stations in our own grid square apart from one in France (JO00UV) and one in Belgium (JO10UV). (Where did they come from?) Later we started to get one or two out of our area then it all went quiet as lunchtime approached. As the contest was not a high pressure one we decided to take a break but still listen where we could.

As it was a Sunday our normal club meeting took place and many members were very supportive of our efforts. (You know who you are)
Read the rest of this entry »

The following announcment has just appeared in the latest RNLI 2011 SOS Radio Week Newsletter:

“Icom individual award

The individual that raised the most money (over £240) for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) during SOS Radio Week 2011 was Malcolm Harman (G3NZP) and for his massive contribution he receives an Icom IC-E80D D-star dual band hand-held transceiver”.

Malcolm would like to thank all those members who sponsored him and made a donation. It seems a very nice little radio (and most appropriate considering Malcolm’s contribution to GB7MH) and he says that without CARC help he would not have won. Club members that still have a copy of March 2011 RadCom can be reminded about the event.

Malcolm says that Icom wish to present this prize at a suitable venue (rally, club meeting, etc.) and have photographs taken to issue in press release. We look forward to seeing this.

Read the rest of this entry »